Columbia University announced today that Claude M. Steele, a well-known social psychologist, had been appointed as its new provost, effective in September.

Mr. Steele has taught at Stanford University since 1991. He also directs Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. His skill in the latter role is a major reason Columbia recruited him as provost, according to today’s announcement.

Among psychologists, Mr. Steele is closely associated with the concept of “stereotype threat.” According to dozens of studies by Mr. Steele and his colleagues, people perform poorly on tests and other cognitive tasks after they have been reminded (even very subtly) of negative stereotypes about groups that they belong to. Scholars disagree about the mechanisms behind stereotype threat — and also about what, if anything, educators should do about it. But the basic phenomenon has been well established in the lab.

Mr. Steele’s beach reading this summer will probably include background material on the long history of tensions and personnel disputes surrounding Columbia’s department of Middle East and Asian languages and culture. —David Glenn